The Fascinating Origin of Todays Christmas Traditions by Horrifying History

[00:00:00] Listener discretion is advised. Hello and welcome to Scary Time, the podcast that helps you find new, emerging and undiscovered scary and paranormal podcasts. I'm Greg, the host and curator of Scary Time. I hope everybody's having a really great holiday season.

[00:00:18] And this week we're going to have a couple of extra holiday episodes to celebrate. So when you're running around, you're wrapping presents, you're doing Christmas shopping, you get a little extra to listen to. And these are some great episodes, so I hope you really enjoy them.

[00:00:34] Today's episode is from Horrifying History. Horrifying History is where history, science, legend and the supernatural collides. This episode is really fun. It's the fascinating origin of today's Christmas traditions. If you like today's episode, make sure to check out the episode description for links to subscribe.

[00:00:55] All right, let's get this show started. Begin. Dark cast network. The light shines brightest on our indie podcasts. My name is Brenda and welcome to Horrifying History where you will hear about the unexplained, paranormal and supernatural happenings that have stained the pages of history.

[00:01:57] Christmas, the most festive time of the year. I have fond memories of decorating the tree, helping my mom with the lights or at least attempting to, hanging the stockings on the mantle, being with family,

[00:02:08] eating amazing food and then on Christmas day, seeing a bounty of presents under the tree with our home being filled with joy, love and laughter. But my question is, where did all the traditions of Christmas come from? Many will say it is the birth of Christ we're celebrating.

[00:02:25] Is that the case or are our traditions far older than we realize? So settle in with some hot cocoa, eggnog or whatever you prefer and listen to the true origins of some of our Christmas traditions. One of the most recognizable Christmas traditions is the Christmas tree.

[00:02:52] The origins of this actually go all the way back to the symbolic use of evergreens in ancient Rome and Egypt. Long before the beginning of Christianity, plants and trees that stayed green all year had a special meaning during the winter.

[00:03:07] In the Northern Hemisphere, the shortest day and the longest night of the year falls on December 21st or December 22nd and is called the winter solstice. Many ancient people believed that the sun was a god and that winter came every year because the sun god had become ill.

[00:03:25] They celebrated the solstice because it meant at last the sun god would begin to get over his illness and return in all of his brilliance. Evergreen boughs reminded them that the green plants would grow again when the sun god was strong and summer would return.

[00:03:41] The Egyptians worshipped a god they called Ra, who had a head of a hawk and wore a sun as a blazing disc in his crown. Ra was the king of all other deities and was the father of all creation.

[00:03:54] He was the patron of the sun, heaven, power and light who governed the actions of the sun in our sky. But as we mentioned, Ra would become ill every year. It would be at the winter solstice when Ra began to recover from his illness and

[00:04:10] the Egyptians would fill their homes with green palm rushes which symbolized for them the triumph of life over death. Early Romans on the other hand marked the solstice with a feast called Saturnalia in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture.

[00:04:25] The Romans knew that the solstice meant that soon their farms and orchards would be green and bountiful. To mark the occasion they decorated their homes and temples with evergreen bows. Meanwhile, in Northern Europe the Druids who were the priests of the ancient Celts

[00:04:41] also decorated their temples with evergreen bows as a symbol of everlasting life. The people of Scandinavia thought that evergreens were a special plant of their sun god, Baldur. But the tradition of having a Christmas tree during the holiday season is believed to have folkloric pagan roots.

[00:04:59] Pagans are said to have decorated a yule tree which typically was not cut down but left growing in nature. They covered it with decorations that symbolized the sun, the moon and the stars as well as they appeared in depictions of the tree of life.

[00:05:14] But it's actually Germany that's credited with starting the Christmas tree tradition as we know it today. In the 16th century people would build Christmas pyramids out of wood and decorate it with evergreen bows and candles to represent the stars in the night sky.

[00:05:30] Most 19th century Americans found Christmas trees a bit of an oddity. The first record of one being on display was in the 1830s by German settlers of Pennsylvania, although trees had been a tradition in many German homes much earlier.

[00:05:45] The Pennsylvania-German settlements had community trees as early as 1747, but as late as the 1840s Christmas trees were seen as pagan symbols and not accepted by most North Americans. Like many other festive Christmas customs, the tree was adopted much later in North America.

[00:06:05] To the new England Puritans, Christmas was sacred. The Pilgrim's second governor, William Bradford, wrote that he tried hard to stamp out the pagan mockery of the observance and penalizing any sort of holiday fun. Influential people like Oliver Cromwell, who was the Lord Protector of the Commonwealth

[00:06:23] of England, Scotland and Ireland were preaching against the heathen traditions of Christmas carols, decorated trees, and any sort of joyful expression that desecrated that sacred event. In 1659, the General Court of Massachusetts enacted a law making any observance of December

[00:06:42] 25 other than a church service, of course, a penal offense. People were fined for hanging decorations. That Scrooge Lake attitude continued until the 19th century when the influx of German and Irish immigrants undermined the Puritan legacy.

[00:06:58] All I can say is that I'm grateful that frivolity is no longer penalized because how boring would Christmas be with fines hanging over our heads if we dared to have any fun on that day? Our story of the Christmas tree doesn't end there, however.

[00:07:13] German settlers began migrating to Canada in the 1750s after being recruited by the British forces in attempts to strengthen Britain's position in what was called then-Nouveau France, a.k.a. New France, which is modern-day Quebec.

[00:07:27] With them, they brought many of the traditions that are associated with Christmas today – advent calendars, gingerbread houses, cookies, and Christmas trees. But it wasn't until Queen Victoria's German husband, Prince Albert, put up a Christmas tree at Windsor Castle in 1848 that the Christmas tree became a tradition throughout England,

[00:07:47] the United States, and Canada. Another popular Christmas tradition is mistletoe. You'll often find that hanging from doorways or you might find someone walking up to you and hold it over your head. Tradition states that a man or woman is allowed to kiss another that is standing underneath

[00:08:03] that mistletoe, but if you choose to say no, bad luck will befall that person who declined. Some see this as romantic while others, not so much. Here's the thing about mistletoe that has always slightly weirded me out. Mistletoe is actually a parasite.

[00:08:21] Mistletoe has evolved to plant itself on host trees and plants, and from the time it sprouts, it steals water and nutrients from its host. This results with the host weakening and eventually it will die limb by limb as the mistletoe sucks the life out of its host.

[00:08:37] Now imagine as a young kid watching people kiss under the mistletoe thinking, ew, yuck, mom and dad are kissing! Well that's a normal kid, but I was the one thinking, ew, yuck, mom and dad are kissing under a parasite!

[00:08:48] But as you all know my spooky friends, I was a weird kid, but that was only a preview of what was to come. The origins of this particular Christmas tradition however, just like the Christmas tree, also comes from way back in history.

[00:09:02] In fact it comes from Norse mythology. In Norse legends, the mistletoe plant was a sign of love and peace. This happened after the death of a god. The Norse god Baldur was the most beloved of all the gods.

[00:09:18] The son of Odin and his wife Frigg was generous, courageous and full of love. He brought happiness to all he would see. But Baldur was also a prophet. He started to have dreams that something horrible was going to happen to him and the gods started

[00:09:32] to worry when they heard about this. They asked Odin to try to find out what was going to happen to their beloved Baldur. Odin didn't wait. He jumped onto his horse and rode to the underworld to speak to a dead seer who he knew would have the answers.

[00:09:48] When he reached the underworld, he saw that it was decorated beautifully like some sort of feast was about to occur. This is when Odin saw the seer and she told him that all the festivities was to welcome his son Baldur.

[00:10:01] Odin sadly returned to Asgard and he told his wife and the fellow gods that Baldur was soon going to die. But Frigg, she wasn't having that. She traveled all throughout the realms and made all the entities promise that they would not touch her child.

[00:10:16] After the oaths were secured, Frigg returned. The other gods thinking now that Baldur was safe started throwing everything and anything on hand at Baldur. They thought why not? After all, nothing could harm him now.

[00:10:28] As items started to bounce off the god, the trickster Loki saw his opportunity to stir up some mischief. He dressed up in a disguise and he asked Frigg if all the things in existence promised not to hurt Baldur. He said yes, except for mistletoe.

[00:10:46] She told Loki that she didn't see anything so small and innocent causing her son any harm so Loki being Loki, he immediately carved a spear out of mistletoe. He brought that spear to the blind god Hodor and told him that he must be feeling left

[00:10:59] out due to his disability. The other god agreed so Loki told him that he would put a stick in his hands and he would point his hand in the direction of Baldur. Leave not seeing the issue with this, Hodor threw the spear killing Baldur instantly.

[00:11:15] The gods were devastated. Unconsolable, Frigg begged the gods never to use mistletoe as a weapon again. They promised that mistletoe would only be used for acts of love, kindness and happiness. Frigg was given the authority to make mistletoe live up to this pledge.

[00:11:34] But this is only part of the reason why mistletoe is used the way it is today. The last piece of this puzzle for the kissing tradition appears to have started during 18th century England, where mistletoe first became widely used as a Christmas decoration.

[00:11:48] Beginning as a custom amongst those who were considered lower classes, it soon became popular with all and eventually became a universal holiday ritual. This would eventually blend with the Slavic pagan tradition called Padwanisqa. This involves the custom of hanging branches of a decorated fir tree from the ceiling

[00:12:07] of a home. Mistletoe was often used as part of this. The branches would be decorated similarly to a Christmas tree with straws and ribbons. This practice is still being done today, but quite often artificial mistletoe has replaced

[00:12:21] the real thing since not only is the real stuff a parasite, but both its berries and leaves are toxic to both humans and animals. Boxing Day has always been an odd thing for me as I never understood why it existed.

[00:12:46] For the record, it has nothing to do with boxing, but I always wondered why would a day for shopping be on the calendar? Well, that's because originally it had nothing to do with getting a great deal at the mall.

[00:12:58] Boxing Day was traditionally a day off for servants, a day where they received a special Christmas box from their employers. The servants would also go home on Boxing Day to give those Christmas boxes to their families. Churches also played a huge part in the creation of Boxing Day.

[00:13:16] Throughout the year, they would take money from churchgoers in the form of a collection and store that collection money in a box which they would open on Christmas Day. The money then was handed out to the poor the next day, on Boxing Day.

[00:13:30] Today, those boxes aren't as popular, however, many still leave out extra money for people in the weeks before Christmas and call it a Christmas box. Stockings are also a fun thing as they're often the first thing you start out on on Christmas morning.

[00:13:46] Well that was for most people. When I was a child, I was able to charm my annoyed parents into letting me break into that stocking on Christmas Eve. Then I convinced him it was a great idea to open up all the gifts the day before Christmas too.

[00:13:59] You see, it was a win-win situation. I get my stuff early, they get to sleep in, but either way, in most families, things often start with a stocking on Christmas Day. While there are several stories of where the stockings came from, including a legend of

[00:14:14] Saint Nicholas who used the stockings to help a poor man be able to pay the dowry for his three daughters' marriages, Santa put gold coins or in some tellings of the tale, gold balls into the stockings for the engaged women.

[00:14:29] But once again, like most other Christmas traditions, there is an older version of how Christmas stockings came to be. According to Nordic historian Philip Seetker, the tradition of Christmas stockings derived from the Germanic Scandinavian figure of Odin.

[00:14:45] Children would place their boots filled with carrots, straw or sugar near the chimney for Odin's flying horse, Slappnir, to eat. Now Odin would reward these children for their kindness by replacing Slappnir's food with gifts or candy.

[00:14:58] This practice, she says, survived in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands after the adoption of Christianity and it became associated with Saint Nicholas as a result of the process of Christianization. Either way, depending on what version you believe, these days stores carry a large variety of

[00:15:15] styles and sizes of Christmas stockings and Christmas stockings are also a very popular homemade craft. Many families create their own Christmas stockings with each family member's name applied to the stocking so Santa will know which stocking belongs to which family member.

[00:15:31] And as for Santa Claus himself, he also may have older roots than the famed Saint Nicholas. Many historians believe that Odin may have been the prototype for Santa. Now as for how Santa is known today, that's less of a story about old traditions and

[00:15:48] more of a story of good old commercialism. Santa Claus historically has been described differently in various books such as Washington Irving's History of New York. This book was first published in 1809 and the poem Old Santa Claus with Much Delight was published in its 1821 printing.

[00:16:07] But it was the publication of the 1823 poem A Visit from Saint Nicholas more commonly known as To Us the Night Before Christmas that made certain elements of Santa embed itself in American lore. From this point onward, Santa was now a plump, jolly old man in a red suit

[00:16:25] who wrote a sled drawn by reindeer and he slid down chimneys to deliver toys to well-behaved children. This version of Santa Claus lore made its way back overseas to England, Ireland and Scotland by the 1850s. As time went on, books, newspapers, magazines, radio shows and films reinforced Santa's

[00:16:44] popularity, with the cheerful character eventually becoming popular in countries where Christmas is celebrated by a significant part of the population. Now many people know that the names of Santa's reindeer are mentioned in the poem To Us the

[00:16:57] Night Before Christmas but did you know that they are loosely, and I do mean loosely, based on the ancient Norse legend of Thor? Thor was the god of thunder who flew through the sky in a chariot pulled by two magical goats.

[00:17:13] Linked to the northern parts of the world, reindeer were once viewed as mysterious creatures symbolic of good fortune and joy. So perhaps, if magical goats can fly and pull chariots, it's not a stretch to have stories about flying reindeer pulling a sleigh.

[00:17:28] The first known written account of reindeer in association with Santa Claus occurred in 1821 when a New York printer published a booklet titled A New Year's Present. It was here that reindeer were first mentioned as pulling Santa sleigh through the frosty night.

[00:17:44] Then next came a count of the visit from St. Nicholas written by Troy Sentinel in 1823 which gave the reindeer names. But the thing is my spooky friends, they are not the names you are currently familiar with. As this poem goes,

[00:17:59] More rapid than eagles his coarsiers they came, and he whistled and shouted and called them by name. Now dasher, now dancer, now prancer and vixen, on Comet, on Cupid, on Dunder and Blixom.

[00:18:12] To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall, now dash away, dash away, dash away all. Yes you did hear me correctly. Originally called Dunder and Blixom, Santa's seventh and eight reindeer are now commonly known as Donner and Blitzen in today's day and age.

[00:18:29] But we can't forget Rudolph in all of this. Rudolph is not linked to an order of gods flying goats though. In 1939 Robert L. May wrote The Most Famous Reindeer of All as a Christmas coloring book for his employer the department store Montgomery Ward.

[00:18:46] The company gave away these coloring books as holiday gifts to children to entice parents to shop. It was then that Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer began guiding Santa's sleigh. Then eleven years later in 1948, Robert's brother-in-law Johnny Marks wrote the song

[00:19:03] Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer which became one of the biggest selling Christmas songs of all time. Now a huge Christmas tradition for most of course is getting presents. Once again, as most of the traditions we are talking about today, it has an older origin than you would think.

[00:19:20] The tradition of gift giving extended long before the founding of Christianity with the roots being in the festivals of the ancient Romans, in particular the festival of Saturnalia as we mentioned earlier where thanks was given for the bounty provided by the agricultural god Saturn.

[00:19:38] The festivities took place from the 17th to the 23rd of December and were celebrated with a sacrifice and a public banquet followed by private gift giving, continued partying and a wild atmosphere where social standings didn't matter.

[00:19:53] During this feast slaves would be concerned to be an equal to their masters and free speech was embraced. The conversion of Emperor Constantine to Christianity in 312 AD signaled the beginning of the end of pagan celebrations in the empire but early religious leaders simply couldn't

[00:20:10] just ban the popular Saturnalia as there would be a serious backlash. There is a theory that Romans used many of the traits of this festival when establishing Christmas which would be a rival feast that would take Saturnalia's place but commemorate a Christian occasion, the birth of Jesus.

[00:20:28] The exchange of gifts was one of the traditions that was carried over from the old to the new. The old pagan custom of gift giving was rationalized into Christianity by attaching strong associations with the gifts of the Magi to Jesus.

[00:20:42] But it was also possibly influenced by the life of Nicolaus of Myra, a 4th century saint who was famed for his fondness of giving people gifts. When he was made a saint he became more widely known as Saint Nicholas which of course

[00:20:57] is one of the many possible origins of Santa Claus. As the years passed, the spread of Christianity continued as trade routes were established and new territories were converted to the religion. This meant that more and more people were introduced to the gift giving celebration

[00:21:13] that marked the end of the year and everything that stood for. In England the Anglo-Saxons were converted to Christianity by missionaries from both the Celtic tradition from Ireland and the Roman tradition from the heartlands of the former Roman Empire.

[00:21:29] These were not easy times as each strand of the religion often came into conflict with one another. Now on top of this was the added threat of the pagan Viking raiders from the Nordic countries.

[00:21:40] But the end result was a series of Christian kingdoms that became familiar with the long standing values of early Christmas including the act of gift giving. So now it's time to talk about Christmas ornaments. For the record I love ornaments.

[00:21:56] To me each one of them that is on my Christmas tree has a meaning or a memory attached to it. When Christmas trees first started to become a tradition they were decorated with nuts,

[00:22:06] candles and berries but then in the 1800s a German glass blower by the name of Hans Grenier began to make Christmas ornaments out of glass called baubles because according to several sources he could not afford to buy the traditional apples for his tree

[00:22:20] so he decided to make his own. These were the first manufactured Christmas ornaments and they were a huge commercial success. By the 1890s Woolworth's department store in the United States were selling 25 million dollars, yes you heard that correctly, in German imported ornaments that were made of lead

[00:22:38] and hand blown glass. That would be about 820 million dollars in today's funds. As time went on tree decorations started to be created that were true pieces of art when they incorporated new materials like tinsel silk and wool.

[00:22:54] Now for the longest time Germany was the premier manufacturer of hand-made ornaments but they were suddenly competing with Japanese and Eastern European mass production as the Christmas ornament became a huge commercial venture. By the mid 1930s over 250,000 ornaments were being imported to United States each year.

[00:23:15] By 1973 Hallmark introduced their keepsake ornaments which gave decorations a collectible value. Many other companies followed in suit and they create successive lines of limited edition ornaments that are unique to that year. Thank you all for joining me for our latest episode of Horrifying History.

[00:23:44] Feel free to reach out to us on Facebook at Horrifying History, on Instagram at Horrifying Underscore History, on Twitter at HorrifyingHIST1, or reach out to us by email at HorrifyingHistoryatoutlook.com and tell us what is your favorite

[00:24:00] Christmas tradition and which origin story that we spoke about surprised you the most. If you haven't done it yet please remember to hit the subscribe button for this podcast for when you do not only to let more people know about our show

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[00:24:44] Go to patreon.com slash Horrifying History to sign up today just like our listener Carolina did. Thank you so much Carolina for supporting our show. It means everything to us. Now before we go I would like to thank Rachel Goddard for her research and for writing this

[00:24:59] episode. Be sure to check out our show's notes for Rachel's social media links and for the links of her two books, Wild Rose a Tombstone and Too Tough to Die. I also wanted to take a moment to thank you all for listening.

[00:25:12] It is because of all of you that we get to tell great spooky stories all year round. To each and every one of you, thank you from the bottom of our hearts. From our home to yours, we wish you a safe and happy holiday season.

[00:25:27] Thank you all for listening, happy holidays and until next time.

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